At times, California women’s basketball player Marta Suárez would begin her homework on a plane above the Bay Area then complete the assignment somewhere over the Great Plains.
For the Stanford men’s team, the charter plane’s wireless proved critical for handling coursework during cross-country flights as an Atlantic Coast Conference newcomer.
Realignment has shaken things up for college programs everywhere, yet it has been particularly grueling in the ACC and Big Ten as power-conference leagues spanning the four contiguous U.S. time zones with footprints touching both the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines. The changes have led to long hours on planes, extended time away from campus, and unforeseen travel issues.
What it hasn’t added up to is wins.
The ACC and Big Ten men’s and women’s teams had won just 30.6% of their games (38-86) as of Thursday when traveling from the Eastern time zone to the Pacific time zone, or vice versa. That number would look even worse (25.9%) if not for two top women’s programs — No. 2 USC and fourth-ranked UCLA in the Big Ten – winning all eight of their games in the Eastern time zone during conference play.
It’s a sign of how basketball is in a tough position with the sport far from a top priority in the football-driven college landscape.
UCLA men’s basketball coach Mick Cronin criticized the Big Ten travel schedule for being fueled by money, saying in January, “We’ve sold our soul to television.” USC coach Eric Musselman also sounded off.
“We’re in the hole two to four games based on travel,” he said, “and it’s going to be like that forever for men’s basketball.”
Demanding road
In the ACC, only two teams have gone west — first, the 14th-ranked North Carolina women, then the Wake Forest men — and swept the Cal-Stanford series.
The Big Ten has sent teams out West to play either a Pacific Northwest double with Washington and Oregon, or a Southern California one against UCLA and USC. The 15th-ranked Maryland women, the No. 17 Michigan men and 18th-ranked Purdue men are the only conference teams to snag both games on a single trip.
Along with the USC and UCLA women, the Oregon men (at Ohio State and Penn State in January) were the only other former Pac-12 program to sweep an Eastern doubleheader in either the ACC or Big Ten.
And this new normal requires a greater degree of diligence for everybody involved. Athletes must endure long flights with more time zone changes while paying attention to the need for rest, recovery and school all while trying to stay mentally ready to play a game with body clocks that have barely adjusted.
Cal traveled 18,015 miles during the regular season, including five flights of 2,100 miles or more. The Golden Bears will have added another 2,320 miles each way for the ACC Tournament in North Carolina.
That’s a stark difference from zipping to Las Vegas or Seattle for the Pac-12 Tournament.
“I feel for them, because they’re doing it about four times, we’re doing it once or twice every four years,” N.C. State women’s basketball coach Wes Moore said, “so it’s a little different.”
Regular trips from the West Coast to the East Coast typically mean missing several days of class those weeks. There might also be weather delays or stops in the middle of the country to refuel, so sleep can be tough to come by, too.
“It wasn’t that bad. There’s a lot of talk about it and it makes sense … but we’re young girls, we’re competitive, we’re excited about playing basketball and that adds to it,” said Suárez, a senior forward from Spain. “There’s a lot of investment in taking care of our bodies. It wasn’t that hard. Every person’s different but we have a lot of internationals who are very used to very long flights so a four-hour flight to me, that’s just a couple movies.”
Travel hiccups
Wake Forest men’s coach Steve Forbes experienced long travel during his days as an assistant at Louisiana Tech when the current Conference USA member competed in the Western Athletic Conference — with a footprint all the way to Hawaii — early in the 2000s.
So he had an idea of what to expect.
The Demon Deacons flew commercially out of Charlotte, North Carolina, about 80 miles from their Winston-Salem campus on Feb. 3, practiced the next day, then beat Stanford 79-73 on Feb. 5. From there, Forbes said the staff let the team sleep in the day after, then they shifted locations and did a walk-through at the hotel in Berkeley ahead of playing at California on Feb. 8.
A day before the win at Cal, the team held a morning practice then visited Alcatraz Island prison, a popular tourist destination offshore from San Francisco.
The trip proved to be a success with two wins, though not without hiccups. Delays for their flight home the day after the game in Berkeley created chaos, eventually leading eight players and four coaches to travel to San Jose and fly home on a private plane owned by prominent Wake Forest athletics donor Mit Shah that coincidentally was in the region.
The remaining players and staffers eventually made it back home in the early morning hours of Feb. 10.
A charter flight home would have been ideal in hindsight.
“I thought we were pretty well planned,” Forbes said. “You can’t obviously plan for the delays in the flights. If we had done the charter out and charter back, it would’ve been an A-plus because we got two wins.”
Passing the time
First-year Stanford men’s coach Kyle Smith is accustomed to long trips after having worked previously at Washington State in Pullman, and before that at the University of San Francisco and Columbia.
But even for him, this kind of mileage is a new adventure every time the Cardinal depart the Bay Area by charter.
“Honestly, it has been way better than we expected. Our guys have really bonded during the travel,” Smith said. “They play spades and compete. They have access to get all of their work done.”
Jaylen Blakes and Oziyah Sellers are leading the way in card-game wins. The freshmen sometimes have to sing for everybody — and star senior Maxime Raynaud calls Evan Stinson “a great singer.”
Smith meanwhile? “I take naps and listen to Mt. Joy.”
Moore, N.C. State’s veteran coach, is adapting, too. He remembers the days before air travel was the norm.
“I have been doing this a long time, we used to take seven-, eight-hour bus rides, and they had to ride with me in vans way back when,” Moore said. “You think this was dangerous you ought to try that. Most people won’t even get in the car with me.”
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Janie Mccauley And Aaron Beard, The Associated Press
